What income do you consider rich?

[Believer99]

Interested to know what household income is considered rich.
When I was younger (19) I remember telling my BF when he earns over 30k il be a SAHM 😳 because I considered that to be an awful lot of money

Now we are older & earning more of course my perspective has changed, I would probably consider a household income of over 120k rich now we live in the north of England.

@HolidayTime2021, disability isn’t a lifestyle choice. Obviously you didn’t know that but daft comments about "lifestyle choice" shows you didn’t even try to think why a family would have a low income.

Love all the six-figure-commanding galaxy brainers who think earnings that you spend on your house or lifestyle don’t count towards your level of wealth.

I work in an LLP and the partners take home £700k - £1.5m a year, depending on their level of seniority. To me, that's 'rich'. Ie they can live in a multimillion pound house, have two kids in private school, own a holiday home, have an impressive investment portfolio, buy the latest Tesla (!), have a city flat etc etc.
My husband and I have low outgoings, no kids and a household income of £90k ish, and we're still so careful with money - shopping for bargains in Aldi and staying in bog standard holiday accommodation etc.

@RosieGuacamosie

Our household income is well over 120k in the north and we don’t feel particularly rich and that’s with no kids and a small mortgage at the moment! We’re obviously comfortable but not to the extent we’re splashing out on first class flights or expensive champagne every weekend.

This is of good example of "its all relative". If you have no kids yet imagine if you had to make 120k amongst a family.

Happy! You can’t buy happiness.

@amsadandconfused I never said 300k is normal, I said it's the bare minimum for what would make a 'rich' household income where I live. Of course it's not normal- the v question was what do you need to be rich, and therefore not normal!

I also don't count being able to spend £50 on a curry night as rich. It's means you're comfortable, but rich to me means owning a 4 bed plus house, in a nice area with good schools. It's literally impossible to do that where I live unless the household's income is at least 300k.

As have a combined income of £170k and I feel like we are comfortable but not rich. I don't buy clothes regularly, maybe once a year and all from Primark. We don't eat things like lamb or salmon or drink alcohol as they're too expensive. We only go on holiday once every 2-3 years.

you still have a high salary even if you have to spend it all!

Precisely

This thread is grim reading.

'Comfortable but not rich' my arse!

There's no shame in accepting you are very, very lucky. And rich.

minceandonions
I too feel £750k to £1.5m is rich. As you say enough to live in a large 4 bed house, send your dc to private school (if you wish), pool, holiday home, 5 star hotels etc.

Interesting that you and dh, have no dc and still have to he careful with household income of £90k. Perhaps you over pay your pension, mortgage, have expensive hobbies etc. My stbxh and I had a similar income with dc, while we were no means rich, we were comfortable. We had to save monthly for holidays and other larger expenses. We lived in a very modest 3 bed that was too small for growing family. We could afford to shop in Sainsburys but chose to shop in Aldi.

Santasstuck
Surprising that you do not feel comfortable with household income of £170k (around £8.5k a month). I can only assume you have a large mortgage, you invest, over pay on your mortgage and pension. On £170k, you should at minimum be able to shop at middle of the range clothes stores (M&S, Next), eat salmon and beef at least once a week.

Mumsnet is full of people saying they earn a LOT of money. It doesn’t reflect my experience in real life…! We live in South Norfolk and most jobs here pay about £16-22k. If you’re lucky and very qualified in a niche industry you might get more. Only a few people higher up in larger companies or working for themselves in certain areas get more - I used to work in a head hunting recruitment agency and the most I’ve ever seen was £80k for a chief executive type role in a well known Norfolk company. Dh earns £24k, the most I’ve ever earned is £29k - anything over about £35k to us is doing very well indeed!

@Lovinglife45 no sorry, I dont mean we 'have' to be careful, I just mean we 'are' careful.
When I was 20, if I pictured a couple on our combined salary, I'd have thought it meant champagne on tap and first class flights, and of course it just means an ordinary lifestyle if you also save, overpay the mortgage and pay into a pension.

Ah yes so you have the savings, house and pension that those on a much lower income don't have...

These threads always amuse me at the posters who try to explain how their far higher than average income isn't very high 😁

This thread is fucking mental reading.
If you’ve got money left at the end of the month, and don’t worry about money regularly, you’re comfortable. Any more than that and you’re rich, imo. (And no, I don’t need any condescending advice about my “lifestyle choices”!)

These threads always make me lol at the people who are on £100k + but shop at primark, don’t drink, drive a 15 year old banger, never have a takeaway, rarely go on holiday (not even a weekend away in a caravan) and don’t have any hobbies as they can’t afford any.

We are 80k at the moment and we are OK considering we have 2 x nursery fees and a highish mortgage. Once both kids are at school I’m hoping I will feel minted!

For what it’s worth I tend to shop at next, very rarely drink (same as pre-DC), drive a 12 year old car, occasionally go to the chippy, looking at booking a term time break at butlins, and I want to get back to running.

I went down a rabbit hole reading about this the other day - the whole "I earn £120k but I'm not rich" mindset. The vast majority of people in this country earn a figure within a relatively small range - say £30,000 - £60,000 (or thereabouts). For the top 10%, the range of possible earnings is much much wider - from £60k to multiple hundreds of thousands of pounds. It's human nature to compare ourselves to others, so even when earning upwards of £100k you can easily see people around you earning double, triple or more than that and think you must be average, when in fact you are far better off than the vast majority of people in the country (and the world).

Rich is a subjective term - lots of people spend more than their means even when bringing in 6 figures, and few people can afford unbridled luxury. If you can afford to pay your bills, treat yourself every now and then, and do nice things in your leisure time, that seems pretty good to me!

£120,000 puts you in the top 1% of earners, so I think it would be hard to argue that anyone earning above that isn't rich.

£30,000 is the median household income.

So I would probably start considering someone rich at around the £80,000 mark. It feels strange, because for a lot of people here that's just a fairly average to unimpressive income in their circle, and doesn't seem to buy a particularly luxurious lifestyle, but it's an amount that would be life-changingly huge for the vast majority of people in the UK.

80k would be lifechanging here! (Both uni educated but life happens.)

I don't think I know anyone that lives near me on that salary (and mix in educated, graduate circles as well as local school mums!)

As have a combined income of £170k and I feel like we are comfortable but not rich. I don't buy clothes regularly, maybe once a year and all from Primark. We don't eat things like lamb or salmon or drink alcohol as they're too expensive. We only go on holiday once every 2-3 years.

You must be prioritising something else here? Mortgage? Savings? Private school?

Mayor completely agree with your post and subjective nature.

But even you have given most salaries as above average! If 30k is average half will be under...

The issue is the word "rich" which is very subjective. It's also more loaded than comfortable or well off.

It partly depends on your housing situation.

If you're mortgage free then a household income of above £80k would give (for most people) plenty to do whatever they want - depending on the size of the family etc.

If you are renting or have a mortgage then of course it's very different and depends on your location etc.

It's all very subjective anyway.

I've concluded this is a pointless question. People who are just being honest about what would make them feel rich are being bashed.

My household income is over 200k. Do I feel fortunate?- extremely. Do I feel comfortable? (Very). Do I feel rich?- far from it. I live in a tiny two up two down, don't go on fancy holidays and will be sending my children to state school. This is the nature of living in an expensive part of the country and being young enough to have not benefited from house prices rises over the past few years.

Rich is clearly a subjective term. It's unfair to bash me for not feeling rich when that's just how I feel.

@lawnotorder

rich would be 500k plus & not really working for a living

It's interesting that you include not working in your definition of rich.

Rich in time and leisure? :) Sounds great.

@WholeClassKeptIn

Mayor completely agree with your post and subjective nature.

But even you have given most salaries as above average! If 30k is average half will be under...

Yes, you are right, sorry - it was based on a Guardian article I read, but I didn't quote the numbers quite right. The point was that the range of salaries in the lower earning deciles is much narrower, but as you get up to top 20%, 10% or 5% of earners it's much much wider. The article was inspired by a man in the Question Time audience saying he earned £80k which was completely average. The Guardian explained why he was wrong!!!